Motivational Quotes

Humankind

Cruelty has a Human Heart, And jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And secrecy the Human Dress. The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a Fiery Forge, The Human Face a Furnace seal d, The Human Heart its hungry gorge.

- Blake, William

Best Quotes about Humankind

Man is a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

Twain, Mark

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

Mencken, H. L.

Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.

Shaw, George Bernard

In our civilization, men are afraid that they will not be men enough and women are afraid that they might be considered only women.

Reik, Theodor

I love men, not for what unites them, but for what divides them, and I want to know most of all what gnaws at their hearts.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

Those who live in a world of human beings can only retrace their steps.

Sarraute, Nathalie

I have found little that is good about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

Freud, Sigmund

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

Watts, Alan W.

People can be divided into three classes, the few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no idea what has happened.

10.

Man, became man through work, who stepped out of the animal kingdom as transformer of the natural into the artificial, who became therefore the magician, man the creator of social reality, will always stay the great magician, will always be Prometheus bringing fire from heaven to earth, will always be Orpheus enthralling nature with his music. Not until humanity itself dies will art die.

Fischer, Ernst

11.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

Einstein, Albert

12.

The human race is a zone of living things that should be defined by tracing its confines.

Calvino, Italo

13.

[Three classes of people]: Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.

Da Vinci, Leonardo

14.

The Goddamn human race deserves itself, and as far as I'm concerned it can have it.

Janeway, Elizabeth

15.

Mankind are animals that makes bargains, no other animal does this.

Smith, Adam

16.

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.

Fuller, Buckminster

17.

Let us ask ourselves; What kind of people do we think we are?

Reagan, Ronald

18.

We say nothing essential about the cathedral when we speak of its stones. We say nothing essential about Man when we seek to define him by the qualities of men.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

19.

But remember please, the Law by which we live, we are not built to comprehend a lie, we can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die.

Kipling, Rudyard

20.

If you think that every bad thing that has been done on the face of the earth has been done by man, you're right -- but so has every good thing.

21.

The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monotonously.

Twain, Mark

22.

Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs, he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on him and they still give him much trouble at times.

Freud, Sigmund

23.

I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Socrates

24.

As the archeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.

Foucault, Michel

25.

Man is head, chest and stomach. Each of these animals operates, more often than not, individually. I eat, I feel, I even, although rarely, think. This jungle crawls and teems, is hungry, roars, gets angry, devours itself, and its cacophonic concert does not even stop when you are asleep.

Daumal, Rene

26.

Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.

Butler, Samuel

27.

One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight.

Thurber, James

28.

Man was nature's mistake --she neglected to finish him -- and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.

Hoffer, Eric

29.

One of the oldest human needs is having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.

Mead, Margaret

30.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

Kennedy, John F.

31.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

32.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

33.

I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

34.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

35.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

36.

That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

37.

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

Bacon, Francis

38.

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

Gide, Andre

39.

Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.

Mencken, H. L.

40.

I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.

Weil, Simone

41.

The simplest single-celled organism oscillates to a number of different frequencies, at the atomic, molecular, sub-cellular, and cellular levels. Microscopic movies of these organisms are striking for the ceaseless, rhythmic pulsation that is revealed. In an organism as complex as a human being, the frequencies of oscillation and the interactions between those frequencies are multitudinous.

Leonard, George

42.

To the eyes of a god, mankind must appear as a species of bacteria which multiply and become progressively virulent whenever they find themselves in a congenial culture, and whose activity diminishes until they disappear completely as soon as proper measures are taken to sterilize them.

Crowley, Aleister

43.

There are two kinds of men who never amount to much -- those who cannot do what they are told and those who can do nothing else.

Curtis, Cyrus H. K

44.

There are realities we all share, regardless of our nationality, language, or individual tastes. As we need food, so do we need emotional nourishment: love, kindness, appreciation, and support from others. We need to understand our environment and our relationship to it. We need to fulfill certain inner hungers: the need for happiness, for peace of mind for wisdom.

Walters, J. Donald

45.

It's great to be great, but it's greater to be human.

Rogers, Will

46.

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

Wilde, Oscar

47.

There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight.

Canetti, Elias

48.

In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.

Marshall, Thurgood

49.

A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Einstein, Albert

50.

People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those who sit still and inquire,why wasn't it done the other way?

Holmes, Oliver Wendell